Down Under visits the North Country!

Observations of Canada 

from a Down Under Point of View, Part 1

by Stephanie McCarthy of South Australia

My friend Glenn H has insisted that I put forward my reflections on Canada, and I don’t think he meant a banal travelogue devoid of opinion. So here I go with honest observations, some positive, some negative, some objective, some subjective. The context of our recent travel to Canada is this – My husband Maurice and I made the journey from our home in South Australia to Canada because my son was marrying a Saskatchuan girl.

Right, Maurice and Steph in a Canada hotel enjoying pre-dinner snacks. Steph is an accomplished writer and Maurice a graphic designer in Adelaide, South Australia.

Our first two days were spent checking out Vancouver, and from the air it looked fascinating with all its bays and inlets and ships big and small, logs lined up on a wide river, and snow-capped mountains making a breathtaking backdrop. We’ve always preferred townships with streets going up and down and around – it makes for more surprises - so Vancouver was a city for us. However, homeless people were begging on just about every street corner, and many loose-cannon characters obviously high or semi-conscious on drugs.

One night as we dined al fresco we watched the passing parade – individuals of indeterminate gender and mixed races, tourists and office workers, etc. One young man wandered out from a building, positioned a perfectly good office chair in the gutter, lounged in it and smoked pot, every now and again putting out his hand for money. Then an old Japanese man emerged from another building and set up a tray table with a soft esky underneath, and proceeded to offer samples to and sell (sushi? spring rolls?) to the pedestrians, some of whom seemed to know him.

One morning we went up Grouse mountain, not on foot I admit, because that steep track is called ‘The Grind’ and is respected by folk younger and fitter than Maurice and me. Grouse Mountain gave us our first glimpse of tourists in greater numbers than we had ever experienced. In the gondolas plying the mountain we were packed in like sardines, a disturbing feeling for Aussies familiar with wide open spaces of the outback and our genteel spacious city like Adelaide.

We took a taxi to Vancouver airport for the trip to Saskatoon, and our driver was a Hindu Indian well-versed in political issues of the day. He was deeply concerned that the Canadian government was allowing Chinese to buy up an enormous number of properties in the city, and then to ‘sit’ on them until they could push up prices on the home buyers and rental markets to exorbitant levels.

Our driver kept repeating ‘It is just wrong’, followed by a prediction that soon he would no longer be able to afford to rent a home for him and his family, and that there would be even more homeless on the streets of Vancouver. The night before we had talked to some Kiwis who claimed that the same practice is being allowed in New Zealand, especially noticeable in Auckland, and one of them said darkly ‘The Chinese will take over the world all right – by stealth’.

Magnificent Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

I remembered the controversy increasing back in Australia – the same thing happening in Sydney, and the public mumbles when the Chinese bought a few of our more modest cattle stations, then erupting into open rebellion when the Chinese tried to buy the largest in Oz, one of the Sidney Kidman stations bigger in size than many small countries. 

The Government was forced to step in and stop that particular sale, but guess what? Mining magnate Gina Reinhart bought it with a Chinese firm as equal partners, and so she just put an Australian face to the deal. And why are our governments allowing this? It seems they will do anything for a quick buck, and bad luck about the big picture consequences. Like Canada, Australia and probably NZ has soft corruption from top to bottom.

Part 2 follows soon....